


Afterthought

by sheafrotherdon



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-07
Updated: 2011-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-14 13:17:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/149593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to 1x13</p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterthought

If Steve looks at it right, the photo of his mother's bombed out car loses meaning – it's just metal and torched paint and a ragged hole where the hood should've been, and there's no hint that someone was behind the wheel. He wonders how Koji's car looks, if the fender's crumpled or the windshield blown, runs the possibilities, catalogs accelerants, figures he could predict the scorch marks if he tried.

"You're done here," Danny offers, and Steve has just enough presence of mind to shake his head.

"No. Still working." He sweeps his finger right to left across the touch screen on the desk, watches the photos roll.

"That wasn't actually a question," Danny says, "but thanks for playing."

Steve glances up, feels frustration flare hot and bright in his gut when he sees the expression on Danny's face. "I'm fine."

Danny raises both eyebrows.

"I'm _fine_."

Danny points at him. "You," he says slowly, "have had a day."

Steve lets his face go blank. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. I'd review it for you, but you were there for most of it, save the part where you were unconscious, but you got the hickey as a reminder. It's nice. Real eighth grade."

"Your point?"

Danny offers a fleeting, mirthless smile. "Yeah, that. You're done here."

Steve rolls his eyes, looks back at the touch screen.

"You need to go home. You need to sleep. I know you have difficulty with the concept of ordinary human behavior at the best of times, but today? Today deserves a little respect, a little reverence. Today has earned some consideration for the way it kicked your ass."

Steve shakes his head again, stares doggedly at the image of a postcard in front of him. "Won't sleep."

"That's the issue?" Danny asks, throwing his arms wide. "We got solutions for this. We got drugs, we got warm milk. Hell, I drive you to some dive bar, you throw back a couple, you're fine."

It sounds tempting, but he doesn't want the people or the hubbub, the extra press of noise inside his head. "I got Scotch at the house."

"Okay, okay, see? That is the kind of thinking I can reward. We go back to the house, we throw back a couple, I . . ."

Steve looks up sharply. "You're not driving home if you drink."

Danny blinks at him, chewing on the inside of his lip. "One," he says at last, "I am a grown man, a father, I do not do that shit. Two," and he's on a roll now, "you drove a _motorcycle up a flight of stairs_ today, so where exactly – no, tell me, this I have to hear – where do you get off telling me how to handle vehicles of any kind?"

Steve tries not to smile. "Scotch, then."

"Scotch." Danny nods. "And I'm driving."

Steve throws him the keys.

* * *

Steve leans against the wall between the living room and office, arms folded, glass in one hand. He watches Danny toe at the debris scattered across the floor, the broken glass and messed up papers, the splintered wood.

"What did this chair ever do to you, huh?" Danny asks. "Gave you a place to sit and how do you thank it? You smash it over some guy's head, that's what you do."

It's good to have company in denying the obvious, and the scotch burns sweetly against Steve's tongue. "You really think I should talk to a therapist?"

Danny looks up, huffs a laugh, glances off toward the kitchen and laughs again. "Do I think – you?" He can't seem to help himself, keeps laughing as if he just heard the best joke in the world. "You – you need a _team_ of therapists, my friend. Whole departments at major universities could be devoted to what goes on in your head. That said," he nods and gestures with his glass, "I admit, to be fair, there cannot be too many people who have experience with your tics."

Steve rests his glass against his chin. "I talk to you."

"You do, you do." Danny shrugs a little. "I am not, however, licensed, so maybe we keep that between us."

Steve smiles. "Maybe."

"Unless, of course, you wanna see them cuff me, take me away for breaking the laws of head shrinkage."

Danny offers up one wrist, skin stretched tight across tendons and bone, and Steve swallows hard, knocked off-kilter in that stupid half-instant. He can't see Danny's pulse, but he knows it's beating, and that's enough to shoot a bolt of pure adrenaline right through his heart.

"Hey, hey," Danny says softly. "You have got to stop looking like that."

"Like what?" Steve says, clearing his throat. He pinches the bridge of his nose. He's losing it; losing it over a stupid patch of skin; a stupid patch of skin he can't even see anymore.

"Like I made off with your favorite knife," Danny says, setting down his glass. "Like I stole your truck - like you're thinking of every awful, horrible, _fucked up_ way that someone you know could get hurt."

Steve inhales sharply, dodges that thought as best he can. "Yeah, well."

"Okay, look, pay attention." Danny comes in close, radiating heat and aggravation. "I get that today was bad, it sucked, I understand this. But I am not helpless. You get that? Do you _get that_? I have a gun, I am trained to use it, I feel _good_ about shooting people who intend to do me harm. I may not have your ju-jitsu, kung-fu, bare-knuckle fight skills, but I have punched you in the jaw already, so you know exactly how good I hit. Admittedly, it's crossed my mind that you may have the ability to disembowel someone with your _mind_ , but you also seem unable to eat and sleep without prompting, a more useful survival skill on a _day-to-day basis_ that I have actually mastered." He looks down at his shoes, breathing hard; back up at Steve's face. "I am not going anywhere."

Steve huffs derisively, because that's so not the point; looks over toward the lanai.

"I am not," Danny says again, "going anywhere."

And now Danny's just asking for him to say something vicious. "Shut up."

Danny raises an eyebrow. "Are we seriously at the point of 'make me' in this conversation?"

Steve grits his teeth. "I said _shut up_."

"Okay, I see, fair enough." Danny spreads his hands. "Make me."

Steve's brain stutters and grind to a halt – there's white space where his options ought to be. The back of his neck begins to heat, because Danny doesn't know what it means to have a car explode and your sister kidnapped, doesn't know what it's like to risk the people who are left. And yet it's Danny who's leaning in, who's brushing his lips against Steve's, who's humming against Steve's mouth like he knows what he's doing and it's _Steve_ who doesn't have the first fucking clue.

"I'm gonna take this glass," Danny says calmly, easing the death grip Steve has on his drink. "I'm putting it down, right here, on the bookcase, and then I'm – "

But that's enough, and Steve leans in, kisses him a little desperately, doesn't want to know what comes next if it means using words and Danny's right there, meeting him half way, slowing them down, mouth lush and steady until they're breathing the same air, foreheads pressed together. Danny's fingers are tight against his biceps.

"Yeah?" Danny asks quietly.

"Yeah," Steve says, and risks a smile.

Danny smiles right back.

The sheets are still rumpled, tangled with a blanket at the base of his bed, and the drawer on his nightstand's still hanging open. The t-shirt and sweatpants he wore the night before are in a heap beside the closet; everything speaks of intrusion, interruption, of evidence gone and Mary not yet missed.

Except for Danny, who's climbing over him, dragging his mouth down the line of Steve's throat; except for Danny's fingers busy at his belt; except for Danny pausing, kneeling above him to strip off his own shirt, shivering when Steve splays his fingers above the waistband of his pants. "Swear to god," Danny says, pushing Steve's hands above his head, pressing them against the mattress, "do you even," and he's running his fingers along the line of Steve's arms, thumbing his tattoos, tilting his head to kiss the hinge of Steve's jaw. Steve murmurs something – sounds, not words – and rolls his hips, palms the dip and sweep of Danny's spine, fills his hands with Danny's ass and _fuck_ the way he kisses, dirty and stubbled, laughing into his mouth, and his pants are still on, fabric rough against Steve's bare thigh. They tussle and fight a little, Danny cursing when Steve gets him onto his back, when he mouths at his navel, when he pulls off those goddamn pants and drags his teeth across Danny's hip. Spread out beneath him, Danny's a gut-deep hurt, beautiful, _beautiful_ , and Steve catches his hand, sucks a fingertip into his mouth, feels Danny's groan travel up through bone and skin. "Here," Danny says, voice low, breaking a little, and he shifts them, gathers Steve in front of him, pushes until Steve's splayed across the bed, cock dragging slow against the sheets. "Like this," Danny says, mouthing kisses to his shoulder, rolling his hips against Steve's ass, sliding a hand to wrap around Steve's dick, working Steve slow. Steve turns his face against the mattress to stifle the stupid, embarrassing noises he has to make, and Danny whispers encouragement, tells him how much he likes this, twists his fingers and strokes until Steve's orgasm builds, filthy, slick; until he's coming, helpless, jerking in Danny's hand. He's drifting, wrecked, when Danny tangles their fingers, when his knuckles turn white and he shudders against Steve's spine, breath uneven, hot against Steve's neck. Steve grunts softly, rolls onto his back, and Danny moves with him, drapes himself bonelessly across Steve's chest, makes nothing but small, contented noises when Steve drags his fingers through his hair.

* * *

Steve wakes, and it's dark, and there are sounds that don't belong. He tenses and reaches for the drawer in nightstand, fumbles it a little, curses when Danny shuffles back into the room.

"Geez, can't a guy take a leak in peace?" Danny asks, flopping down in bed beside him. Steve sags, rubs a hand across his face and forces his breathing to slow. He rolls onto his stomach. "Course, what am I saying," Danny grumbles as Steve throws an arm across his chest, "you're Steve McGarrett, Occupational hazard, am I right?"

Steve lets the rhythm of Danny's breathing soothe him. "Right," he offers, like an afterthought, and when Danny's mouth quirks, he closes his eyes.


End file.
